Cpws Come, and Cows Go, but the BULL goes on forever.

I kind of want to try writing here again, partly just as a way of getting things out of my head, partly because this is a record of so much of my life and partly just because (I mean I absolutely do still read even if I'm rubbish at commenting).

I suspect by now anyone still reading here will have seen this news elsewhere but given I haven't posted since May(?!)

Dad died on Saturday 25 October 2025, only a few days after Mum had been told her chemo wasn't working any more. Two weeks later on Saturday 8 November 2025 Mum died as well. We had their funeral together on the 17 November and to be honest everything mostly feels surreal and strange. Immediately after Dad died I actually slept loads better than I had in weeks (months) but that effect has completely worn off now. I'm still living in our house of course which helps (it's familiar) and doesn't (a lot of memories) and currently I seem to still be waking at the slightest noise and my brain immediately fills in that one of them needs me which of course isn't true.

So here we are. But Christmas is coming soon and everyone is here for Christmas including nibling (who continues to be an amazing human being) AND nibling 2.0 (in utero) which is exciting.

And because I also sometimes use this as a place to keep things I want to look back on this is a poem I related to a lot when I read it last month.

Steadying Myself

Every day is moving
Destabilising
Each new one stamped
With a health and safety warning
Talking with someone
Then, walking on down the street
I stop myself
Lean against a wall
Sit down.

Some days I have to stop this moving life
To receive it
As if everything is trying to explain itself to me
All at once and in these
Faint and distant scintillas
Lost inside fragments of seconds
I know how briefly and beautifully
We are here
How deep still calls to deep
Even if deep doesn't know how to reply
And I steady myself to continue

But sometimes
I fall down.

- Martin Wroe